


Retrospect

by WhiteFoxKitsune (ProwlingThunder)



Series: All Hail The Queen [7]
Category: Invasion America (Cartoon)
Genre: Commander and Command, Female Cale, Gen, Genderbending, Grief/Mourning, Male Rita, xenopolitics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-09
Updated: 2014-10-09
Packaged: 2018-02-20 11:51:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2427677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/WhiteFoxKitsune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt!Fill.</p><p>Rafe considers what might have made Cale say yes to the Dragit's proposal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Retrospect

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ZpanSven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZpanSven/gifts).



> Prompt: Patience

Rafe is the epitome of patience, when it is in his duty to remain so. That had been one of the things that had always grated on his team, his ability to remain so still for so long. They had tested it, when the royal family was safely inside the palace or fortifications; false weather, real weather, it didn't matter. Rafe could go forever.

He could do it again, with Rick watching him. He had asked about the coup, after all, and Rafe had told him the truth as he knew it. He hadn't embellished, he hadn't thrown out his own theories, his own wonders, what he would or wouldn't have done different. That hadn't been what Rick had asked him. Not that Rick had specified what he wanted to know. But by now he should know that Rafe wasn't inclined to offer this sort of information out on a whim.

But Cale isn't here right now, which is possibly the only reason Rick has bothered to ask. But his report has been given, and Rafe thinks that's enough. Of course the human would surprise him, eyes too-sharp, ready to pick him apart at the seams.

It still hurts to think about his team. Rick's made him do it again. He hasn't had time to properly mourn them. They were his Command. They had died doing their duty-- that didn't make the loss any easier.

“...do you...” Rick frowns, picks his words carefully, like he's afraid of setting off a bomb. Rafe thinks it might be safer if he had. “Was there any chance at all that she might have said yes?”

Yes, Rafe thinks, but instead he says, “No.” Because it's true, and Rick is the Oosha's consort and no matter what, Rafe wont lie to him.

At the time the Dragit had asked, there wasn't a heartbeat of a chance. And Cale's words had instantly set them at odds with the military leader, and Rafe had had no choice at all. She was his Oosha. Her word was his law, first and foremost, above any and all others. His Command had known that. They had moved with him, hadn't hesitated, had trusted him and each other. Her words were their law, too.

But-- and Rafe feels just slightly treasonous for it, now, after the fact, because Cale has already made her choice and what ifs and wonderings are not going to change it-- Rafe thinks if the Dragit had waited just another year, she might have said yes.

People on Tyrus were dying. Tyrusian colonies on conquered worlds were dying, as well as the native populations of those words. Naoko-- and Rafe didn't want to even think too loud, in case the dead were listening, but it's true. Naoko hadn't cared. Believing that all life was sacred meant he had never gone to battle to protect their empire. That he had never ordered anyone too. All Rafe's life he had been in combat, while the Dragit operated outside his brother's radar and the Children operated under every radar known. While they tried to shore up and protect the centermost of the Empire from foreign predators and uprisings that were killing everyone. And in all honesty, those predators had probably seemed like generous hosts, compared to what Naoko was doing. Which had been nothing.

Rafe considers that, perhaps, while the Dragit is not the best source of advice or information, that he had been right. They were here in hiding now, not just from the Dragit's men, but also from Earthlings. Rick was a polished exception, but he was only one man. Humans as a whole would never have accepted a rule by Tyrusians unless by conflict, and Naoko's policies with foreign empires spoke for themselves from history. He would have destroyed them all, catering to the humans for scraps through diplomacy, and Rafe knows the Dragit had been right to keep it from him.

But Cale? Just a year, Rafe figured. Maybe not even that long. Just a few times out to see what people were really like, with Rafe a shadow behind, no longer meant to keep her away from the truth. To see what her father had hidden from her, to see the people suffering and dying. Cale cared for her people. It made her dangerous and lethal, not weak. Rafe knew all the buttons to get her writhing, seething mad on their behalf. He knew her. And for her people, she would have done anything.

Rafe hates considering what if's. More when he knows they could have been, that they would have been. Because if the Dragit had waited-- even just a few months and she might have said yes, she wasn't like her father, she wasn't blind to the needs of the people, she would have tried to find a balance she could have lived with, that would have saved both sides, but would have saved -their people no matter what-, because that was who Cale was-- then his Command would still be alive today.

He can still hear Atea, wistful, wishful, hoping. Talking about her rotation out to the nursery, as soon as they went back home.

She had been three months along.


End file.
